The Good, the Bad and the Irritating: A Practical Approach for Parents of Children Who are Attention Seeking

AD/HD: Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder or attention seeking? Ways of distinguishing two common childhood problems

“…Currently Tom was defiant and would throw himself on the floor. He was swearing a lot … He had tantrums … At times he had had a poo and spread it about and told parents about this … Tom would bite his hands and if he had a sore spot he'd pick it … he also put snot on doors or on people … We examined an approach to helping Tom as outlined in Mellor (2000).…”

“…Having decided that the problem is indeed attention seeking, and not AD/HD, it is then vital to examine successful approaches to intervention. However, although the common elements of such interventions (employing, for example, planned ignoring along with positive and negative consequences) are superficially simple, they are fraught with pitfalls and misunderstandings which cannot be examined here (for detailed discussion of programmes at school and home, see, for example, Dreikurs et al, 1982; Mellor, 2000, 2008).…”